KYIV, Ukraine — Russian troops advanced on the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk after celebrating a months-long onslaught that Moscow described as the seizure of a shattered logistics hub and that Kyiv said left its forces still in control in parts of the embattled northern sections of the city, Dec. 8, 2025 The Kremlin says that taking Pokrovsk will lead to further gains across Donetsk; Ukrainian commanders describe a grinding block-by-block fight that they say could determine durability of their entire eastern front.
The fall on Monday of Pokrovsk, which sat close to the intersection of two key highways and linked Russia’s main assault routes across southern Ukraine, represented one of the Russian army’s most significant gains in almost two years, President Vladimir Putin of Russia said this week telling commanders at a frontline post that it would “allow further advances for the military” and claiming that Russian troops are “advancing on practically all directions,” according to a recent Reuters report. To underscore that the battle is all but over, the Defence Ministry posted a video of soldiers hoisting Russia’s flag in a square in a devastated city centre.
Ukraine rejects that narrative. The line of contact now runs roughly along the city’s railway, but Ukrainian troops remain in control of northern districts and raid Russian units farther inside Pokrovsk, air assault officers told local news media. There is “no encirclement or blockade” of Pokrovsk, commanders insist, even as supply routes narrow and Russian troops try to work around the flanks, The Kyiv Independent reports. A senior NATO official in Brussels said Russia probably now controlled more than 95% of the city, highlighting how little unchallenged territory remains for Ukraine to fight over.
Battle for Pokrovsk grinds on.
Up and down the front, the struggle for Pokrovsk is closely tied to that of its sister town, Myrnohrad, around seven miles to the southeast. Drone footage obtained exclusively by The Associated Press shows Myrnohrad nearly surrounded and battered to bits by months of glide-bombing and artillery fire, with Ukrainian marines using ground robots to nudge supplies of food and water through shattered streets. Ukrainian officers say any additional Russian advance there would put the last land corridor feeding troops still hunkered down on the northern edge of Pokrovsk at risk.
Local officials say that only a tiny proportion of Pokrovsk’s prewar population of about 60,000 still resides there after 18 months of bombardment, evacuations and the loss of electricity, water and most basic services. The offensive at Pokrovsk is estimated to have inflicted tens of thousands of casualties on Russia since mid-2024, as Moscow transitioned from major armoured sets of manoeuvre toward infantry-led assaults — accompanied by numerous drones and guided bombs — that ground down Ukrainian defences at high cost in human life.
Why Pokrovsk is on the map
Strategically, Pokrovsk has been a prize for many years. The city, at a crossroads of highways and a key rail line that leads further into Ukrainian-held Donetsk, had served as a logistics hub for the troops of Kyiv defending towns like Kramatorsk and Sloviansk. Military experts caution that firm Russian control here would ease a push toward those cities and potentially jeopardize supply lines farther west toward Dnipro.
The current showdown is the climax of a campaign that has been building for more than a year. In August 2024, Russian forces were “intensifying their attacks on the Pokrovsk front” and had already made inroads toward what Ukraine was then describing elsewhere as a critical hub for logistics, according to a dispatch from the frontline by Reuters. Later that month, an analysis in The Economist described Pokrovsk as a “vital Ukrainian town” coming under increasing pressure and warned that losing it would be to deliver Moscow a critical psychological and strategic victory — a forecast now playing out on the ground.
Disputed capture, uncertain future
Those early warnings reverberate now in the city’s ruins. The claimed capture of Pokrovsk has been framed by Putin as evidence that Russia “confidently” commands the battlefield initiative and can shape future talks with the United States and its allies on terms favourable to his country; a later Reuters account quoted him tying the battle directly to longstanding war aims of seizing all of Donetsk.
Ukrainian officials counter that the battle for Pokrovsk is still raging and that small groups of soldiers, many worn down and outnumbered, are still fighting over apartment blocks and industrial zones at the northern edge of the city. They contend that what they can take and hold on the ground matters as much for future negotiations as a line on a map, even if most of Pokrovsk has fallen.
For now, Pokrovsk has become both a symbol and a test: a symbol of how much Russia is willing to invest in the conquest of just one city and a battle that burns out and wears down Ukrainian forces, while tempting and testing whether the country — with occasional reminders from its partners in the West — can withstand another grinding loss without losing confidence that it won’t eventually give up on eastern Donetsk.
